Solar-powered plane makes first intercontinental flight, must pass over Pyrenees
Solar Impulse made its first international flight in November 2011, to Paris
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Solar Impulse, the elegant airplane powered only by solar cells, left Payerne shortly before 08:30 Thursday 24 May, and headed towards the Jura and into France.
Pilot André Borschberg expects to land this evening, after midnight, at Madrid Barajas Airport where the plane will have a three-day technical check before flying on to Rabat in Morocco, 28 May at the earliest, for its first intercontinental flight.
By 10:00 the plane was flying at 3,880 metres, at close to 100kph.
The flight can be followed live.
©2012 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
©2012 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
©2012 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Angela Merkel, German chancellor, has her first-ever meeting with her new French counterpart, Francois Hollande, who takes office as president Tuesday 15 May before flying to Berlin.
The two meet the day after eurozone finance ministers get together, Monday, to find a way forward with policy, just as voters are moving towards more extreme positions in a number of country’s.
Merkel’s own Christian Democrat party lost heavily in the key state of North-Rhine Westphalia Sunday and Greece is finding it increasingly difficult to put together a coalition government. Merkel continues to push for austerity as the key to solving the eurozone economic crisis, while Hollande campaigned for office on a platform of increasing spending.
The Guardian offers a glum picutre, “Against a background of intense volatility, Europe was pulled in opposing directions by voters, protests, and political paralysis at the weekend, deepening uncertainty over its future shape and gnawing away at the prospects for the euro‘s survival as a 17-country union.”
Reuters earlier reported on the OECD’s latest figures: “Economic activity in the euro zone is diverging, with Germany leading a group of economies showing slightly more positive signals while France and Italy are posting sluggish activity below long-term trends, the OECD said on Thursday.”
France shifts to the left with Socialist win
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Francois Hollande comfortably defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy Sunday 6 May to become France’s new president, with 52 percent of the vote. The Socialist’s lead has been growing in the past week, following a first round of voting that eliminated candidates further to the left and right. They included Marine Le Pen, who outdid her far-right father’s ability to garner votes, before losing to Hollande and Sarkozy in the runoff.
The official result was announced at 20:00 in France, and although polls had been forecasting the result, French media were blocked from posting these. The French interior ministry earlier in the evening gave preliminary results which were not far off the final results.
Swiss media, not bound by French law, reporting polling results during the afternoon and evening.
La Bastille in Paris, long home to left-wing victories, was awash with crowds of cheering Hollande supporters Sunday night.
Both of the final cadidates have promised to balance the budget within five years, but the French appear to have joined the growing ranks of Europeans rebelling against austerity measures.
Greek voters move away from the centre over austerity programmes
Greek voters, who have been the hardest hit by European Union austerity programmes, moved away from the centre in their own voting Sunday, electing far-right and far-left candidates to parliament.
The Socialists in France have not had a president in office since Mitterrand left in 1995 and markets are waiting to hear whether Hollande plans to increase spending; he has promised to tax the wealthy more heavily and to bring back retirement at age 60, but only for those who have worked for 40 years.
The rest of the European community will also be watching closely, as France’s changing face could have an enormous impact on EU policies.
What French and world media are saying: Le Figaro, Le Monde, TF1 television, France and BBC, The Globe & Mail, Irish Times, NY Times, Reuters
©2012 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – French and French-speaking Switzerland media are abuzz speculating over the likely outcome of a debate Wednesday evening 2 May between French presidential candidates Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande. The 2.5 hour debate will be televised during prime time.
US new agency AP reports that “experts say past debates have never swung a French election, regardless of who comes off better in the televised showdown”.
One person who won’t be commenting live on the debates is journalist Anne Sinclair, the American wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK), former head of the International Monetary Fund. She was scheduled to be a commentator on BFM-TV, reports Figaro, but after the Guardian ran an article 27 April where DSK accused Sarkozy and other “political enemies” of orchestrating his downfall.
DSK was considered a front-runner for the French presidency as a Socialist, before being arrested in New York for attempting to rape a hotel maid, charges that were later dropped.
The final round of voting is Sunday 6 May. Hollande has been leading in French polls.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The good thing about being a police dog is that your job is to play, all the time. And you spend hours learning how to do it well, with your buddy, whom others call your “handler”.
“They don’t work, they play. That’s what dogs do, and police dogs are no different,” Jean-Christophe Sauteral, press officer for Vaud Police told GenevaLunch during a demonstration of police dog training Wednesday 25 April high in the Jura hills near Sainte-Croix.
Police from four countries come together once a year in this area for a week of intensive specialty training for dog handlers and their animals.
The dogs play hard, and their level of discipline is striking.
Each country’s police dog teams have particular skills that they share with the others, says Sauterel. They also simply get to know each other and work together, useful because the police forces call on each other when highly specialized teams are needed.
The Austrian police dog teams are particularly known for their searches for bodies and tracing human blood, says Sauterel. “And the Belgians are the best at working with fires,” he adds. Paris teams have drug-search expertise.
Swiss pioneered Sokks method for training dogs with pure molecules
The Swiss are known for their dogs’ work searching pure molecules, a relatively new field called the Sokks method, where dogs are trained to search for pure molecules, for example those in drug odours, rather than the less reliable training in specific odours. With cocaine, for example, it can become contaminated with other odours and as it degrades, the odours shift. But the underlying molecules remain the same. Switzerland adopted the Sokks method in 2004. Dogs trained with it have shown a 28 percent increase in successful detection, according to Vaud Police.
Canton Vaud has 13 dog handlers, with 5 of them and their dogs on rotating duty, 24 hours a day. The dog teams are used in Vaud on average 5-6 times a day and throughout Switzerland about 40 times a day. The handlers use down time to continue their dogs’ training.
Once a week the dogs and their trainers meet for a day of joint exercises and continuing education for the handlers.
The dogs belong to the police force, but the handlers pick out their own dogs at the kennels when they are two and a half months old, and the dogs are then assigned to the families where they spend the rest of their lives. They train until they are two years old before they are put on duty with their handlers, but they join the police patrols as early as possible, to get them used to unusual situations and noise, for example in stations, markets, restaurants.
Vaud Police’s dog unit (K9) has one Labrador, but the rest are German or Belgian shepherds (Malinois). They are all trained to perform all police dog tasks: tracking, looking for lost objects, defending their masters, searching for explosives, and looking for drugs, for example. One dog has been trained specially to work with special intervention forces, learning to remain completely calm, quiet and still for hours, but ready to instantly move into attack mode.
Estimates show Hollande with 28-28.8 %, Sarkozy with 26.2-27%
Le Pen’s strength a surprise, outdoing her father with 18.5-20%
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – France was neatly divided Sunday night 22 April by its voters’ leanings, with Socialist Francois Hollande giving the left a tidy lead, taking 28.8 percent in a first round of voting for president according to some exit polls, but centre-right Nicolas Sarkozy getting 26.2 percent. And Marine Le Pen carried the right strongly with 18.5 percent. Figures vary depending on the polls.
Hollande’s score with a near-record 80+ percent of voters turning out, was the highest of any Socialist candidate in a first round since Francois Mitterrand in 1988, according to Le Monde.
The real surprise of the evening was Le Pen’s strength, with 20 percent of the vote, according to exit polls. Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, pulled a surprise for the far right when he came in second in the 2002 presidential race.
France forbids its media to publish any exit or other types of polls between midnight Friday 20 April and this evening at 20:00, when polling stopped, and Swiss media spent much of last week speculating on the role they might play as advance announcers in the Internet age.
Ain’s exit polls show 30 percent voting for Sarkozy, but no figures in at 23:20 for Savoie or Haute-Savoie.
Links to French and Swiss (Fr) sites: Figaro, Le Monde, TF1, RTS
Will France re-elect Sarkozy?
©2012 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The French go to the polls Sunday 22 April in a first round of voting for president, with a daunting 10 candidates vying for the job.
Incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy was lagging slightly behind Socialist Francois Hollande in last week’s polls but the two have been running a close race in recent days, each hovering around 26-29 percent, with right-wing Marie Le Pen and left-wing Jean’Luc Mélenchon each having 16-17 percent, depending on the poll (Wikipedia, polls).
Since none appear able to garner the 50 percent necessary to win, the likely scenario now appears to be a Sarkozy-Hollande runoff, with three days of frenzied campaigning left.
Le Monde 19 April has published a guide to where the 10 candidates stand on key issues (French). Voice of America provides a straightforward summary of the election in English.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Global military spending remained practically unchanged in 2011, but budgets saw strong increases in Russia and China, while military expenditure fell in the United States and in Europe due to austerity measures.
The Swedish think tank, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, (Sipri), published the figures Tuesday 17 April.
Overall spending was $1.73 trillion or 0.3 percent above 2010, the group said in its annual review.
The US remains the top military spender at $711 billion, in spite of a 1.2 percent cut, the first reduction since 1998.
Central and Western Europe military spending fell by 1.9 percent, with Germany down 3.5 percent and France 1.4 percent.
China, the world’s second biggest spender at $143 billion, increased its budget by 6.7 percent. Russia’s military budget rose a whopping 9.3 percent in 2011 to $72 billion, overtaking the United Kingdom and France, to make it the world’s third largest spender.
Links to other sources: The Guardian, Voice of Russia, Radio Canada, Washington Post
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A long-range rocket launched by North Korea Friday 13 April to mark the 100th anniversary of the regime’s founding leader exploded 90 seconds after taking off, nonetheless drawing condemnation from G-8 countries.
A joint statement from foreign ministers of the G-8, which comprises the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy, condemned the action, and said they may request an “appropriate response” from the United Nations Security Council.
Switzerland also condemned the North Korean move.
The launch, which North Korea said was intended to put a satellite into orbit, has been widely seen as an attempt to test long-range missile technology forbidden by UN resolutions.
The failure of the much-lauded Unha-3 rocket was reported on national television in North Korea, in a rare demonstration of candor. A statement said that it had failed to enter orbit.
The UN Security Council is scheduled to meet Friday to discuss the launch.
Links to other sources: BBC, The Guardian, MSNBC
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Charles de Gaulle-Roissy airport is Europe’s busiest nighttime airport, according to Le Monde, and the French don’t like it. A German decision 5 April to close Frankfurt, another busy hub, from 23:00 to 05:00 is being watched closely by the French. The Paris newspaper says that until now authorities have resisted pressure to close the airport for fear of losing out to the competition. Roissy is Europe’s second busiest airport, but with 160 airline flights between 22:00 and 06:00, it holds the top night slot. Le Monde reports that with the Paris airports group claiming the night business employs 27,000 people, with euros4.5 billion in turnover, the lights wont’ go out easily on night flights.
Police in Vaud and Geneva join forces to combat cross-border theft
Number of assaults in Geneva fell in 2011
Violent crimes fell in Geneva in 2011: orange shows simple injuries and yellow serious plus homicides (Source: Geneva Police / OFS statistics)
GENEVA / LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Geneva tops the Swiss list for a 2011 rise in property crimes, including break-ins and theft, but Lausanne, Basel, Bern and Zurich also saw increases last year that outpaced population growth and were well above the national average of 71 per 1,000 inhabitants.
Geneva’s violent crimes, including all degrees and forms of assault, fell in 2011, however; one exception was the increase from 4 (2008) to 15 knife attacks, in four years.
Urban border regions in western Switzerland in particular have seen cross-border burglary increases and Tuesday the cantonal ministers in charge of police for Geneva and Vaud announced a joint task force to step up coordination with French police to tackle the problem.
They are also calling for tougher penalties against repeat offenders and note that the “Lake Geneva region appears to have become a privileged target for robbers.”
Two features of the cross-border crime that are worrying police in Geneva, reports swissinfo, are the number of under-age Balkans working in theft in a stretch from Milan to Paris and a shift from street crime to burglaries by a group of about 400 North Africans living illegally in Geneva.
Burglaries in Geneva rose 29 percent in 2011, break-ins 19 percent and vehicle theft 9 percent
The new European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics 2010 indicates that Switzerland has one of the highest rates of criminal problems linked to migration, but the most recent figures are five years old, covering 2003-2007, and European reporting standards differ. The UK, for example, records ethnic background rather than nationality for criminals arrested, while Switzerland, which has one of Europe’s highest rates of resident foreigners, lists nationality.
Geneva and Basel are the only two cantons with 2011 crime rates higher than 100 per 1,000: 159 for Geneva and 119 for Basel (source: Swiss Federal Statistical Office)
Crime statistics for Switzerland for 2011 were released Monday by the Federal Statistical Office in Neuchatel, and include cantonal details.
Cantonal police have been releasing highway and accident statistics in the past few days.
Overall, numbers show a mixed safety picture, with property crimes up, more foreigners entering and re-entering the country illegally and who are often linked to other crimes.
Nationwide, violent crimes are down by 7 percent and in the Lake Geneva region there were fewer road accidents.
Geneva was the subject of much media hype in 2011 about personal safety and crime but the statistics don’t bear out complaints that the city is unsafe, physically, although residents and visitors would do well to watch their cars, motorbikes and bags, with theft on the rise.
Vaud saw its overall crime rate jump 18.6 percent, with a 14 percent increase in break-ins and 7 percent increase in robberies. Country-wide the rate of break-ins rose 16 percent. Car theft was up by 4 percent.
A concern in Vaud is the “massive presence of Bulgarian and Romanian prostitutes, implying a potential problem with human trafficking,” the canton notes in a press release. Police closed down immediately 7 of the more than 700 massage parlours they checked during the year.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Four students and an adult died Monday morning 19 March and five other people were injured when a gunman on a scooter opened fire at the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in the Roseraie district in Toulouse, France. The man has not been found and French officials suspect he may be the same person who shot and killed two soldiers Thursday 15 March in Montauban and another soldier 21 March in Toulouse. The weapon has been reported by some media to be of the same caliber but the stories appeared very shortly after the killings, the gunman and the weapon have not been found and police have not confirmed the information. The French public prosecutor said Monday during the day, however, that there are now “important elements” that appear to link the shootings.
French media are also reporting that the gunman had contact by Internet with one of his earlier victims and that police are carrying out cyber investigations linked to this.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Interior Minister Claude Guéant are flying to Toulouse during the day.
Links to other sources: in French: Figaro, Le Monde, TF1; in English: Reuters
MILLLENIUM STADIUM, CARDIFF, WALES – The Welsh team completed their Grand Slam, which involves winning all the Six Nations matches in a season, with a 16-9 win over France, 17 March. It was their third slam in eight years and brought comparisons with the great 1970s team led by Mervyn Davies,who died the previous day. It was not a particularly good game, except in the result, with only one try and long periods of rather negative defensive play by the French team. The Welsh team will not care too much about the manner of the victory.
The English forwards dominated as they crushed Ireland 30-9, including a penalty try. The match was balanced until half-time but then England took complete control at the scrums, aided by handling errors by the Irish.
Italy won the match with Scotland 13-6 to avoid the “wooden spoon” for the bottom team. Scotland’s manager Andy Robinson insisted he would stay on despite his team losing all five matches.
Links to other sites: Wales Online, Guardian, BBC
Swiss federal customs officers (photo, Swiss Customs Office)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Swiss Customs, working closely with French colleagues under the Swiss-EU anti-fraud agreement, have uncovered a ring of cigarette smugglers who imported some 50,000 cartons of cigarettes into France.
The business is valued at CHF2 billion in lost tax monies.
A number of people have been taken in for questioning in relation to a series of crimes that used UN employees who do not have diplomatic status but faked this to import quantities of the goods tax free.
UN employees with diplomatic status do not pay taxes on a number of goods.
An investigation carried out in Switzerland helped French police catch two French citizens driving a van with 1,600 cartons of illegally imported cigarettes.
Home friendly for Switzerland with Argentina
Two big ones are England vs The Netherlands and Germany vs France
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Football fans who are not heading to Bern for the 29 February evening friendly with Argentina are likely to be glued to the TV, with this game broadcast on RTS (new name for Swiss TV and radio) and two major matches also being aired: England versus The Netherlands friendly at Wembley and Germany vs France in Bremen.
2 Navibuses from the N2 Lausanne-Thonon line get their first major maintence job in the CGN boathouse (photo, Copyright 2012 CGN)
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The fleet of line N2 Navibuses that link France and Switzerland via Thonon and Lausanne is back in operation as of 27 February, after a two-week winter repairs break.
It was the first such major maintenance job for the two Lake Geneva ferries since they were put into service in 2007.
The boats have carried more than one million passengers and covered 670,000 km, the CGN (
The commuter ferries
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – France, as viewed from just across the border, has finally bowed to the inevitable: 200 years or more of paying homage to the motto that includes “égalité” has finally resulted in women being reduced to just one label.
A man is a man is a Monsieur and now a woman is a woman is a Madame, with Mademoiselle being gently buried. The little girl/old maid title was officially dropped by the French government Tuesday 21 February by a government circular, reports Le Monde.
In these days of cautious government spending current documents with the old labels will be used before new ones that take note of the death of “Mademoiselle” are printed.
Feminist groups in France have been fighting the use of the label, particularly in official documents, arguing that it involves a subtle form of discrimination, often implying information about a woman’s marital status when it is not required.
The campaign to step up the fight began in earnest in September 2011 on the web site madameoumadame.fr, and in November 2011 Solidarity Minister Roselyne Bachelot asked Prime Minister François Fillon to ban the title of “Mademoiselle”.
“Maiden name” is being buried alongside its twin, Mademoiselle.
RIP.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn (photo, IMF)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK), former head of the International Monetary Fund, is being held for two and possibly three days in Lille, France, for questioning by police about sex parties organized by his friends. Strauss-Kahn has reportedly told police he took part in the parties but that he was unaware the women involved may have been prostitutes or that the parties were paid for out of funds set aside illegally by companies managed by his friends.
DSK is one of several men questioned about what is being called the Carlton Affair, after the name of the Lille hotel where the parties were held. If police determine he was more involved than he claims, he could be charged with pimping and receiving embezzled funds.
The case dates back a year and the new Huffington Post France, edited by DSK’s wife, journalist Anne Sinclair, offers a Q&A on the affair, while Le Monde, provides a timeline, both in French.
The former Socialist candidate for the French presidency moved back to France after the court case against him was dropped, involving rape charges by a maid in New York. He then faced off with a French journalist who said he had attacked her sexually a few years earlier.
Friday is the last day to change your aging French francs for euros
Old French francs: last day to exchange them for euros is 17 February 2011
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Exactly 10 years ago the French franc was put to rest as France’s currency, and today is the last day any of those old bills can be exchanged for euros at banks in France. The government has been calling on citizens to come in early, and not wait for the final day, but a spokesperson for the Bank of France told news agency AFP that they were nevertheless seeing a sudden rise in people bringing in old bills.
Le Point reports that at the end of 2010 some 50 million bills were still in circulation, with a value of euros 602 million.
TSR points out that it’s not all old French money, since the deadline is long past for turning in coins and a number of other bills. The ones you can still exchange, until the banks close today: Pierre and Marie Curie (500 francs), Gustave Eiffel (200 francs), Cézanne (100 francs), Saint-Exupéry (50 francs) and Debussy (20 francs).
If you’re heading for the bank be sure to take legal identification with you. You’ll find the exchange rate and the list of banks on the official site, Je change mes francs. The 20 franc note is worth euros 3.02, to give you an idea.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Mizué Bachelard and her seven-year-old daughter who went missing from their home in Chexbres 26 January have been found in southwestern France, thanks to the posters widely distributed along the French autoroutes by French police, according to the Vaud Police office.
A woman who had taken in the pair spotted a poster and contacted police. Mother and daughter are in good condition. Police in canton Vaud have organized for the girl to be returned to her father, in accordance with rulings by the cantonal Justice of the Peace and the Office for Child Protection.
Britain, France, Germany, Italy Spain: US citizens’ bank data in exchange for US reporting some of their citizens’ bank accounts
Overseas Americans already caught in crosshairs
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A proposed deal that is being hailed by the six countries involved as a step forward in their fight against international tax evasion ironically borrows from a Swiss solution proposed as part of new double taxation treaties. In both cases data on foreign citizens is not turned over directly to the other government by financial institutions. Instead, the banks would hand data on foreign clients to their own governments, which would pass it on.
The US and EU-5 proposal comes as Swiss and US negotiators grapple with differing interpretations of a pending a new tax treaty. Strict Swiss data protection laws have been a sticking point. The Swiss have insisted they will not accept “fishing expeditions” but will accept bulk requests where tax fraud or evasion is shown to be likely.
Switzerland proposed for its recently negotiated double taxation treaties with Germany and the UK that Swiss banks collect withholding taxes that the Swiss government will then pay to these countries. Their citizens can elect to declare the assets and get the withholding tax back or cede it to their governments if they do not want to declare their accounts.
The news of the six nation proposal came at the same time 8 February as the publication of 355 pages of regulations for Fatca, new US legislation designed to fight tax evasion.
EC applauds government to government approach
Europolitics reports that the European Commission was happy with the news.
“The European Commission issued a statement applauding these arrangements: ‘Thanks to this intergovernmental approach – the only one conceivable for now because it is rapid – to the exchange of tax information, the extra administrative costs, compliance costs and legal impediments (related to data protection) that financial institutions in the EU would have experienced will be considerably reduced’. The financial sector itself has estimated at US$100 million the extra costs for a multinational European bank as a result of implementation of the new legislation.
“For the Commission, which opened the debate on FATCA with Washington in April 2011, any EU member state should now be able to adopt this government-to-government approach to information exchange by concluding ‘coordinated bilateral agreements’ with the United States. Washington is considering developing other partnerships with third countries.”
Automatic data handover part of the likely new deal, but reciprocal
The new agreement between the US and Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain would see financial data for all Americans automatically handed by these countries to the IRS, the US tax arm.
In return, the US would hand over data, too, but, in addition, the other countries’ financial institutions would benefit from being included in a group registration with the IRS. The result: complying with Fatca would be far less expensive.
The US argues the new arrangement would lower the cost of implementing Fatca—and that it will at the same time bring the other governments information about bank accounts held in the US by some of their own citizens, those with offshore accounts.
Significantly, too, “the Fatca partner [country] would not be required to terminate the account of a recalcitrant account holder”, an American who did not report account information to the IRS, according to the US Treasury.
The reporting requirements and burdens would not be the same: the US is asking for all US accounts to be reported because it is the only country besides Eritrea to tax its citizens on the basis of citizenship rather than residence. The five European countries would be given data only on their citizens who have US accounts but who are resident in the home country.
Ed. note: Eritrea was condemned in 2009 and again in December 2011 by United Nations Security Council resolution 2023, for destabilizing the Horn of Africa region. Eritrea is sanctioned in part for its diaspora tax, used for military purposes. The US voted in favour of the sanctions. The only other country, according to Wikipedia, that has a citizenship-based tax system as opposed to residence system, was the Philippines, but it changed to a residence system in 1995.
Fatca: data privacy concerns circumvented by reporting to banks’ own governments
Fatca, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, is a US law that went into effect in March 2010 but which is only gradually being implemented. It requires foreign financial institutions (FFI’s) to report to the US government US accounts, according to the US Treasury Department’s press release on the six-nation proposed agreement Wednesday 8 February.
Fatca’s implementation has been rescheduled several times and it has been the subject of much heated debate in the financial industry. The US Treasury Department in its press release concedes that Fatca “has raised a number of issues, including that FFIs established in these countries may not be able to comply with the reporting, withholding and account closure requirements because of legal restrictions.”
Data protection laws have been part of this debate in the UK, for example.
Questions have also been raised about the legitimacy of the American government writing laws that apply to non-US businesses, the FFIs, outside the US.
Fatca and Americans living outside the US: not tax evaders
US expatriates have voiced a number of concerns about Fatca, starting with its failure to distinguish between Americans in the US with offshore accounts and Americans who are resident, particularly long-term, overseas.
American Citizens Abroad (ACA), a Geneva-based international non-profit organization, in 2011 and after public debate in town hall meetings, called for the outright repeal of Fatca, saying it “destroys lives and the US economy”.
Growing number of Americans in Switzerland refused regular bank accounts
A Town Hall meeting of Americans in Geneva Wednesday 8 February called for a show of hands of those who have been turned down for a bank account in the past year: an estimated 50 percent said yes, and afterwards some people admitted privately they haven’t told their banks they are American for fear their accounts will be closed.
The US is currently investigating 11 Swiss banks for aiding wealthy Americans based in the US to evade taxes. More importantly, for Americans who live in Switzerland, Swiss banks, like those elsewhere, are preparing for Fatca, and US clients may be viewed as a liability.
ACA has been gathering growing evidence that US residents abroad, even if they file taxes, are being refused bank accounts and that financial institutions are beginning to divest themselves of US securities.
The New York Times in an article published 9 February says “Fatca has also been criticized by American expatriates because it imposes new reporting requirements. Some have said it makes Americans less attractive as clients for financial institutions, raising the cost of doing business overseas. Those criticisms were not addressed in the proposed rules.”
Tax evasion effort tacked onto jobs bill
Fatca was passed by the US Congress to little fanfare in 2010, tacked onto a much larger jobs bill called the Hire Act. President Barack Obama when he signed it, made reference to four of the five parts of the Hire Act, never mentioning the foreign tax compliance section. The IRS web page devoted to Hire initially failed to mention Fatca as well (Hire Act (pdf).
The US Treasury Department press release yesterday mentions that the five Fatca partners of the US would look at “certain accounts” as part of the agreement.
The law itself is more precise, stating that FFIs will be obliged “in the case of any United States account maintained by such institution, to report on an annual basis” several pieces of information:
“(A) The name, address, and TIN of each account holder
which is a specified United States person and, in the case of any account holder which is a United States owned foreign entity, the name, address, and TIN of each substantial United States owner of such entity.
(B) The account number.
(C) The account balance or value (determined at such time and in such manner as the Secretary may provide).
(D) Except to the extent provided by the Secretary, the gross receipts and gross withdrawals or payments from the account (determined for such period and in such manner as the Secretary may provide).”
It defines a US account: “In general.—The term ‘United States account’ means any financial account which is held by one or more
specified United States persons or United States owned foreign entities.” The exception is an individual whose aggregate accounts at one financial institution, including for example retirement accounts, are under CHF50,000 in a given year.
Update 10 February: pair found, in good condition
Photos removed to respect family’s privacy
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND / PARIS, FRANCE – Mizué Bachelard and her seven-year-old daughter Hanaé may have been seen in Annecy, Swiss police said Friday. The mother and child disappeared Thursday evening 26 January and have been tracked to Paris. Police in Paris have opened a “worrying disappearance” investigation and police in canton Vaud, Switzerland, have opened an investigation for “putting the life of another in danger”.
A police team from Lausanne is in Paris working closely with French police.
The mother, 35, is described by police as “psychologically fragile”.
The mother and daughter were possibly spotted Thursday 3 February at 02:30 in the morning on the A40, in an autoroute toll booth area, but they say they can’t rule out or be certain the pair seen were Bachelard and her daughter.
French police have traced the woman to Paris Friday 27 January when she appeared at Éditions Albin Michel, 34 bd Edgar Quinet in the 14th arrondissement at 08:30. She had sent the publisher a manuscript by post. At 09:40 that morning she took money from a cash machine on the rue de Sèvre in the 6th arrondissement. The mother and daughter were wearing the same clothes they had on when they were seen at a gas station in Bursins, canton Vaud, Switzerland, the night of Thursday 26 January.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Vaud police at +41 21 644 4444.
Description
Mizué Bachelard is 160cm tall, thin and “wispy”, with chestnut hair (she often wears it tied with a band) and brown eyes.
She was last seen wearing a pink pullover, checkered pants or pyjama-style bottoms, and a brown-beige coat.
Her daughter is 120cm tall, thin, with chestnut hair and light blue eyes.
She was wearing a red and white striped pullover, dark pants and a blue jacket with a hood.
Car: blue Nissan Micra car, Vaud license plates VD 551’987 .
Pack your thermal underwear!
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – We’re heading for the slopes shortly, so this will be short and sweet: a great weekend of skiing and snowboarding is out that for those who are ready to brave the cold.
Weather forecast, avalanche conditions, snow depth
Snow whipped off rooftops and swirled around village streets near Lake Geneva, Friday morning
From now until Tuesday: sunny skies with icy temperatures. Everywhere. Wild winds that are already whipping up Lake Geneva are likely to continue through the weekend, “adding to the impression of fierce cold”, says the national weather service, MeteoSwiss.
Temperatures of -10Cwith a high of -8 in Geneva Friday will keep falling, to -12 with a high of -6 by Sunday, and only -7 Tuesday.
Southern Alps areas and the Jura will be some of the cold spots, with La Chaux-de-fonds and Zermatt having overnight lows of -21C Saturday.
Strong winds, up to 55 and 65 kph over the weekend will build in strength, reaching 75kph in many areas and 95kph in Eastern Switzerland at the start of next week.
Snow depth
Small amounts of new snow have fallen in most mountain areas in the past three days. The depth at 2,000 metres throughout the Alps remains more than 200cm and will remain that way given the cold spell. The depth in the Jura is 20-50cm even at 1,200metres.
Avalanche risks are relatively low, 2/5 in most areas except northern Ticino, where it is 3/5.
Jura report
by Shirley Curran
Although the snow conditions are superb, it is extremely cold up on our local hills and the temperatures are due to drop every day until Sunday when we might expect a very slight rise, from the predicted -20C to minus 17! The bise wind is due to strengthen.
If you enjoy feathery light snow and extremely cold weather, this is the time to head for the Jura – but wrap up well and plan lots of stops for hot wine or hot chocolate. The cold is fearsome! As always, I recommend that you check the webcams and the website at Monts-Jura.com before you load up the car.
Alps report: sun and cold weather should provide some perfect skiing, but check resorts for wind closings before you head out, given that the wind is likely to pick up as the weekend goes on. Check our previous winter weekend snow and winter sports reports for links to a number of resorts.
Update 10 February: Pair found, now safe. Photos removed to protect family’s privacy
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Police in two cantons have issued missing persons reports Wednesday 1 February, and they are asking the public for help finding them.
Canton Vaud police say 35-year-old Mizué Bachelard and her 7-year-old daughter Hanaé Noémi disappeared Tuesday evening 31 January from their home in Chexbres.
The mother is “psychologically fragile” say police.
They put out an alert after the mother bought petrol in Bursins, on the A1 autoroute, for her blue Nissan Micra car, Vaud license plates VD 551’987 at 19:40.
She then took money out of a bank cash machine in Versoix and at 09:00 this morning out of a machine in Paris. Mizué Bachelard is 160cm tall, thin and wispy, with chestnut hair (she often wears it tied with a band) and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a pink pullover, checkered pants or pyjama-style bottoms, and a brown-beige coat.
Her daughter is 120cm tall, thin, with chestnut hair and light blue eyes. She was wearing a red and white striped pullover, dark pants and a blue jacket with a hood.
Police believe the pair may be in Paris.
They ask anyone with information to phone +41 21 644 4444.
Valais youth missing from home since 26 January
Bastien Monnet, 18 years old, has not been seen since the night of 26 January in St Maurice.
Sebastien Monnet, missing from St Maurice
He is 187 cm tall, trim build, dark brown hair cut very short, brown eyes. He was last seen wearing military pants with US Army on them and very large side pockets, a black jacket with hood covered in logos, a black winter jacket with small red and gray motifs and black cloth trainers.
Police in canton Valais are asking anyone with information to contact them at +41 27 326 5656.
Fall, Christmas and summer school holidays all happen at the same time in France. But for the two-week winter and spring breaks France is then divided into three zones, each with different dates, so do check the school holiday calendar. The Jura and Alps areas are located in zone A. In winter and spring, one vacation week is shared by two zones, and roads and slopes can then become very crowded. The school calendar can be printed.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Turkish government has reacted angrily to a vote by the French Senate Monday in favour of a proposal to punish those who don’t recognize genocide, including the killing of Armenians in Turkey in 1915. Turkey has long opposed international and internal efforts to label the deaths genocide, although it admits half a million Armenians were killed, while Armenians, who use the term genocide for the events, claim there were 1.5 million deaths. France in 2001 recognized the Armenian claims but the new measure would put offenders at risk for a one-year prison sentence or fine of euros 45,000.
Both the government and its opposition in Ankara condemned the French move as an attack on Turkish honour. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested last week that if the Senate vote passed he might never visit France again.
Links to other sites: Hurriyet, Le Monde (Fr), TSR Swiss pubic television
Finding the right path: a rough task for the French economy right now (photo, E Wallace, Val d'Isere December 2011)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Friday’s credit downgrade by S&Ps sent France into a bad case of the glums, but on Monday 16 January things looked brighter, as Moody’s another key credit rating agency, maintained the country’s AAA note. Moody’s says its assessment Monday does not constitute “a rating action” and it will consider France’s situation again later in the quarter.
The move Friday was not unexpected, but it reheated debates over economic stability in the eurozone. Stock markets in Asia fell slightly Monday in fallout from the news, it appears, but European trading was flat.
The Wall St Journal’s assessment Monday was that “The downgrade to France, the zone’s second-largest economy, will make it harder—and potentially more expensive—for the euro zone’s bailout fund to help troubled states, because the fund’s own triple-A rating depends on those of its constituents. The downgrades also speak to how deeply the concerns over countries on the euro zone’s periphery have penetrated its core.”
Moody‘s France site, in French, was glum last Friday in its outlook for French business. Le Monde, meanwhile, turned Monday to Denmark to examine its 1986 “potato cure” that saved its credit rating after two downgrades a decade ago. The named was given because the extreme austerity programme came at the same time as the one-week harvest vacation, but as the French newspaper points out, it also gives an idea of the programme.
